The Apocalypse Script

by Samuel Fort

  Chapter 3 - Fiela

  Ben turned on his radio and guided his Audi onto the street.

  As he approached a stoplight that was turning red, the speakers blared: “Public health officials today announced that an estimated fourteen thousand people have died from Cage’s disease in the city of New York in just the past week. This is a significant setback for Government officials who have implemented a variety of measures to contain the virus, to include health-screening checkpoints at the nation’s major airports. The disease, which first appeared in Los Angeles just five months ago, has so far claimed the lives of almost a quarter of million people in the United States alone.

  “The situation is even worse in parts of Europe, Russia, and Asia, where deaths are believed to be in the tens of millions, though official numbers put the total much lower. Cases have now also been reported in Australia and New Zealand, once thought of as safe-havens from the pandemic. Experts at the Center for Disease Control have so far been unsuccessful in identifying the source of the pathosis, though at least one expert suggest that the pathogen agent is a ‘rapid-acting prion protein.’

  “Symptoms of Cage’s disease include rapid-onset dementia, changes in personality, paranoia, speech impairment, and loss of muscle control. Unofficial figures show the mortality rate of Cage’s disease to be ninety-seven percent. Death usually occurs within five weeks of the first symptoms occurring.”

  Turning right would take the researcher to his favorite sports bar, but he wasn’t really in the mood for chicken wings and a big screen. Could he actually watch television knowing the Stratton photographs were in his satchel begging for his attention?

  “Several cities and towns along I-15 and I-40 in Utah and Arizona have gone so far as to erect physical barriers at exit ramps in order prevent Interstate travelers from entering their towns. Officials emphasize that such acts are unnecessary, ineffective, and illegal. Nevertheless, U.S. health officials recommend that Americans not travel unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. Other precautions…”

  No. He had made a commitment to review the photographs that day and that was, in fact, all he wanted to do. The light changed to green and he drove forward only to be stopped at another red light fifty yards further down the road.

  “…reports a failed U.S. drone strike on a suspected Iranian missile launch site. Debris from the drone, which the Iranians claim was shot down using sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry developed in coordination with-”

  Ben punched the radio’s power button. Why did he bother with the news anymore? It was bad yesterday, worse today, and would be worse yet tomorrow. Cage’s disease had made many people afraid to leave their homes, especially since video of victims started appearing on the internet four months ago, their lifeless eyes and spasmodic bodies putting the diseased in a gruesome zombie-like state. To date, Denver had been spared, but the researcher knew it was only a matter of time before Cage’s arrived at the city’s outskirts.

  The Iranians reportedly had nuclear-tipped intermediate range missiles. The U.S. and China were playing a game of brinkmanship in the Pacific. Russia had gobbled up yet another of the former Soviet-bloc nations. The stock market was gyrating wildly, up and down ten percent on a daily basis, with three new mysterious “flash crashes” in the past month. Some kind of blight had struck the wheat and corn fields everywhere on the planet, sending the price of groceries sky high, at least if you wanted anything made of or fed wheat or corn - which was just about everything. Food riots had erupted in Africa, Asia, and South America.

  The world was going to hell, no doubt about it.

  The light finally turned green. He tapped the accelerator and turned left.

  Ben had lunch and drove to a small local library that was, thanks to the internet, almost always deserted, thus offering its few guests large tables, spacious seating, and plenty of quiet. There, Ben withdrew from his satchel an aging, leather-bound book with several loose yellowing pages. The faded gold title read: Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphic Characters Explained, by, in the Arabic Language, Ahmad Bin Abubekr Bin Wahshih and, in the English Language, Joseph Hammer, Secretary to the Imperial Legation at Constantinople. London. 1806.

  He flipped to a bookmarked page and read,

  …another old unknown alphabet (see orig. p. 134). This the Curds falsely pretend to be the alphabet, in which the Binushad and Massi Surali composed all their scientific and mechanical works. We are ignorant to what alphabet these letters belong, as we never could make out the language which they express; but I saw at Bagdad, thirty-three inscriptions writing in this alphabet…

  Ben studied the characters but only large quantities of imagination and alcohol would allow him to see any similarities between them and what was shown in the photographs. Finding the English translation lacking he switched to the Arabic text, but while more correct, it did not change the fact that the writing system in the photographs did not correspond to that shown in the book.

  Neither did he find satisfaction in his comparison to the characters shown in An Illustrated Account of the Inscriptions of the Near East, published in 1936, or A Study of Crytolanguages, published in 2004, or The Library of Lost Tongues, published in 1924.

  Ben remained in the library until the sun was low in the sky and then drove to a nearby coffee shop. Ordering a sandwich, water, and coffee, he moved to a corner booth with a good view of the mountains. He had just pulled out the photographs to renew his studies when he heard a young woman’s voice.

  “Sir?”

  He looked up. Next to him was a girl with long hair dyed pink and blue and a ribbon pinned to one side. She wore heavy makeup, to include purplish lipstick and Cimmerian mascara around her unusual violet eyes. He assumed she was wearing colored contact lenses.

  “Yes?” Ben replied, sliding the photographs to one side. He noticed her eyeing them as he did so.

  She said, “My name is Fiela,” pronouncing the word Fee-yel-uh, with an accent on the middle syllable. “Lilian sent me.”

  “Oh,” he said, confused. How had she known where to find him?

  “Can I sit down?”

  “Yes, sorry. Please.” He made a gesture with his hand toward the opposite bench.

  The stranger sat. “Thanks.” Grinning, she said, “You’re surprised, huh?”

  Ben nodded. The girl was dressed in a style he thought of as ‘punk’ - a too-big leather jacket adorned with metal studs draped over a carefully ripped white tee-shirt with a lithograph of some rock band he’d never heard of. There were garish rings on every finger.

  He said, “How did you find me?”

  “I followed you from Lilian’s place.”

  He knit his brows. “Why?”

  “I am her guardian.” The girl had an accent - the same nearly imperceptible accent as Lilian’s.

  Ben chuckled. “Oh, really? Whom do you guard her against?”

  Shrugging, the girl said, “Whoever.”

  This had to be a joke. “I’m sorry, but you’re what, twenty years old?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “You’re rather young for a bodyguard.”

  “Not really,” she replied indignantly, the grin vanishing. “I’ve been fighting for a long time.”

  Fighting? “Are you armed?”

  “No.”

  “So you’ve been fighting since you were in diapers and you don’t have a weapon, but you protect Lilian from…whoever. I assume you’re following me to make sure I’m not a threat.”

  “That’s right,” she said agreeably, apparently blind to the sarcasm. She added, “I think you’re okay, though. You’re Ardoon.”

  “Ardoon?” He thought about that. “A slave?”

  Her eyes went wide. Leaning forward, she whispered, “Attis Nisirtu?”

  Gears turned rapidly in the researcher’s brain. Ardu was an Akkadian word for slave and that Ardoon might be the same word had been a lucky guess. Attis he didn’t know. Ni-sir-too, with an accent on the seco
nd syllable…that was… what? Hidden something, right? His best guess was that she had asked him, “Are you a hidden one?”

  “No,” he improvised, “I’m a researcher. You know a little Akkadian, apparently. Are you a student?”

  “Oh, Akkadian! Right, my mistake,” she said, looking disappointed and sitting back. She shook her head and said, “I’m not a student.”

  “But you’re familiar with Akkadian.”

  “Not really.”

  Ben sighed in frustration and strummed his fingers against the table. Frowning, he said, “Fiela, I don’t think you’re being honest with me. If I were to call Lilian and ask her whether you work for her, what would she say?”

  The girl was suddenly stricken. “Don’t do that!”

  He pursed his lips and nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  The girl named Fiela sighed and wrung her hands together and for a few seconds said nothing. When it was clear Ben wasn’t going to let her off the hook, she groaned and said, “I am a friend of Lilian, but you are right, she is not aware that I am here. Don’t call her, please. It’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous to whom?”

  “Me and maybe her. You, too. There are people listening, always.”

  “Like who?”

  Fiela’s vexation was apparent. “Why must you ask so many questions?”

  “Because you offer so few answers.”

  The girl seemed to assess the man before finally leaning forward and saying, “If you call Lilian you will give away my location. I followed you here because I wanted to know who you are and why you are meeting with her. You’re obviously not Maqtu.”

  Shaking his head, the man said, “What is Maqtu?’”

  “Our enemy.”

  Ben squinted at her. “Enemy? Is this some kind of gang thing? Something to do with drugs?”

  The girl laughed bitterly and looked away. “Kind of a gang thing, yes.”

  That topic was clearly a dead-end, so he asked, “Where do you live?”

  A flash of unhappiness. “Nowhere. Not for a while, anyway. I…I travel a lot. I just got back from Europe.”

  “I see,” he replied, and assessed the situation. Fiela was a Punk or Goth or whatever who was involved in some kind of gang activity. Maqtu definitely sounded like a gang name. The girl had delusions that she was a bodyguard but was in fact homeless and paranoid to the point that she thought her enemies had tapped Lilian’s phones. She had apparently stalked Ben since he left his new client’s mansion.

  Yet, Fiela had spoken an Akkadian word - Akkadian had not been spoken for several thousand years - and knew Lilian, which implied the girl was highly educated and probably came from a wealthy family. She also had a trace accent and had just returned from overseas.

  A rich girl-gone-bad who was the daughter of an immigrant business mogul, he guessed. Daddy’s probably looking for her at this very moment.

  He said, “Let’s have some coffee and talk this over, Fiela. I’m buying. What would you like?”

  “Truly?” she asked, her eyes lighting up.

  Truly? “Sure. How do you like it?”

  “Black, please.” She studied her fingernails. “Maybe something to eat, too?”

  “No problem. I’ll be right back.”

  Ben retrieved the photographs from the table and fell in line in at the counter. While pretending to study the illuminated menu above, he withdrew Lilian’s business card and keyed in the number by touch, the phone still in his pocket. He then retrieved and surreptitiously placed a Bluetooth earpiece behind one ear.

  After only one ring, a man answered. The servant. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Fetch, this is Ben Mitchell. I need to speak to Lilian, please.”

  A minute later Lilian said, “Hello, Ben?”

  “Hi, Lilian. Hey, look, sorry to bother you, but a girl named Fiela has chased me down and she says that she is-”

  “Wait,” the woman said sharply. “Don’t say anything more. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Turn your phone off.”

  “What?”

  “Ben, please trust me. Turn your phone off. I’ll explain later.”

  “Okay, listen, I’m at-” but she was gone.

  Turn your phone off? What was that about? Knowing she would have to call him back for directions, he made a point of not turning the phone off. He ordered two coffees and a piece of cake and returned to the table.

  “Thank you,” Fiela said. She attacked the cake as if she hadn’t eaten all day.

  Maybe she hadn’t, the man thought. “No problem.”

  Her mouth full, the girl said, “Why did Lilian give you those photos? The ones in your bag?”

  “I’m a researcher. She has some questions about them.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  Ben said, “I don’t think I can discuss that with you, Fiela. Not until I can establish your relationship with Lilian.”

  “We grew up together.”

  “Oh? Are you sisters?”

  “In a way. That is what we call one another.”

  She seemed about to say something else but looked out the window adjacent to their booth and focused on a distant flickering of blue lights. Returning her eyes to Ben, she said, “You didn’t call Lilian, did you?”

  “No, of course not. Why? What’s wrong?”

  Fiela stared at the flashing lights, which were definitely coming toward them. Paranoia, wondered Ben, or fear? Maybe she’s on the run from the law.

  “You did call her,” the girl said with finality.

  With an abruptness that startled Ben, the girl jumped out of the booth and darted out the nearest exit and into the darkness. Against his better judgment, he followed, chasing her down an alley into the dimly lit parking lot of a motel behind the coffee shop. She sprinted toward a mop bucket that was positioned outside one of the rooms.

  “What are you doing?” Ben yelled, walking toward her.

  “You called Lilian,” Fiela yelled back. She jerked the mop out of the bucket. “They know!”

  “Who?”

  “The Maqtu, or maybe Moros.” Placing the mop’s head on the sidewalk, she lifted a boot and brought it crashing down on the lower end of the handle, shattering it. She spun the remainder, now a pole arm with a splintered end, from one hand to another, moving back towards Ben.

  “Whoa,” he said, not liking where this was going. “Put the stick down, Fiela.”

  “Do you have a gun?” she asked in an annoyed tone.

  “With me? No.”

  “Then I’m not putting the stick down.”

  Suddenly the parking lot was bathed in flashing blue light. Ben turned to see a police cruiser pulling silently into the parking lot.

  “Fiela, are you in some kind of trouble?” Ben asked, but she was no longer there.

  The police car came to a stop and a spotlight on driver’s side clicked on, blinding Ben. “SIR,” boomed a man’s voice over the cruiser’s speaker, “PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM.”

  Me, Ben wondered? Not the deranged girl?

  He raised his hands into the air. “I’m unarmed,” he yelled.

  There was a sudden movement to his left. It was Fiela moving fast - incredibly fast. Absurdly, she appeared to be charging the police car with the broken mop handle. The spotlight jerked away from Ben as its operator tried to hone in on the girl. It was an impossible task given Fiela’s speed and how she weaved and ducked in ways that seemed somehow both random and purposeful.

  When she was a few feet from the front of the cruiser, the girl launched herself into the air, landing with a loud thud in a crouched position on the hood. The spotlight no longer blinding him, Ben could see the startled expressions of the two policemen sitting inside.

  Fiela did not idle. Keeping one leg tucked up under her and extending the other out, she spun until the boot on her extended leg slammed into the spotlight, destroying it. Before the vehicle’s occupants could react, she leapt to the roof of
the cruiser, the backs of the heels of her boots landing just above the windshield. She stood upright, her back to Ben, and became as still as a statue.

  The passenger door of the police cruiser opened. An officer stepped out, gun in hand, looking upward. He said, “Ma’am, drop the-” and that was all, because at that moment Fiela thrust the broken mop handle violently downward, ramming the splintered end into the man’s face.

  The man’s scream was horrific, as was the geyser of blood. The officer collapsed to the ground. Inhuman gargles erupted from his throat as he writhed on the asphalt. Fiela spun the pole arm and leapt from the roof, landing in a crouch on the fallen man’s chest. The pole arm blurred and the officer was silenced. Fiela went flat, rolled, disappeared.

  For an awkwardly long time, nothing else happened. The policeman remaining in the car was clearly at a loss as to what to do. He couldn’t see Fiela and after what had just happened to his partner he was understandably hesitant to open his own door. He had his pistol out and was holding it upright above one shoulder but it was useless inside the vehicle and he had no target outside of it.

  With no other options, he put the cruiser into reverse and rolled slowly back toward the entrance of the parking lot. As he did Fiela was revealed. She had been beneath the car. When it was no longer above her, she calmly rose to her feet, aimed the fallen man’s gun and sent six bullets into the cruiser’s windshield. On the fifth shot the glass above the steering wheel shattered and on the sixth the shattered glass turned crimson.

  The cruiser stopped.

  Fiela was walking toward Ben, the dead cop’s gun in one hand and mop handle in the other. “Yes,” she said sarcastically as she neared him, “I am in ‘some kind of trouble.’”

  Ben watched the gun in her hand out of the corner of one eye as he said, “Calm down, Fiela. Think about what you’re doing.”

  She surveyed her surroundings as she wiped the sweat, blood and dirt from her forehead with her jacket sleeve. “I can’t stay here. Others will be coming for me.”

  Ben took a gamble and slowly placed his hands on her shoulders. Looking her in the eye he said in a controlled voice, “Fiela, you need to turn yourself in. You killed two men. Two policemen.”

  “They were going to kill me if I didn’t,” she objected petulantly. “Maybe you, too.”

  “No, they weren’t. That’s not what policemen do. Look, you’ve obviously got some great connections. Lilian, for one. I’m sure she or your family can get you whatever kind of help you need. Medical, legal, anything. But running is not the answer.”

  Fiela gave him a reproving look that unexpectedly became a flash of astonishment. Her face lit up in an inexplicable smile. “It’s you! I think I know who you are! You’re the one my uncle told me about!”

  “Your uncle?”

  “Ridley!”

  Ben gaped at her. “You’re Ridley’s niece?”

  “Yeah,” she said happily while looking him over. “Wow. Well done, uncle!” Her face fell as she saw that motel guests were assembling outside their rooms and gawking at them. “Sorry in advance,” she mumbled.

  “For what?”

  There was a blur as something moved toward his face. The word ‘mop’ popped into his brain just as the handle thwacked the right side of his head. Stars danced in front of his eyes. The excruciating pain arrived a millisecond later, when he was down on one knee.

  Fiela crouched next to him and whispered, “Sorry!”

  She stood, performed an elegant spin, and struck him again with the broken end of the mop handle, this time on his left cheek. He felt the flesh rip open.

  Ben refused to scream. Dazed, he tried to stand, wobbled, and tried again.

  “Ouch!” Fiela said on his behalf, wincing. “I forgot the end was splintered. Please, stay down! People are watching.”

  At some level he knew staying down was exactly what he should do, but it wasn’t in his nature. Fiela had sucker punched him and the rage growing inside him was overshadowing his common sense. On his third attempt, Ben made it to his feet, staggering like a drunken sailor.

  “Damn it,” he grumbled but he didn’t know where his assailant was anymore. She was, it turned out, behind him, and she struck him behind his right knee, sending him to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Cursing, he tried again to stand but his right leg was ignoring all orders.

  It didn’t matter. He could already hear Fiela’s footsteps fading into the distance.

  Ben pulled himself upright against the front tire of a nearby car. Warm blood trickled down his cheek and onto his neck. He fumbled inside his pants pockets until he located his phone, which he withdrew and held a few inches from his nose. The glowing screen told him he had called Lilian only eleven minutes before.

  “Are you okay, buddy?”

  A squat, plump man in a bowling shirt was crouching beside him. His nametag identified him as Manager.

  “Mmph,” replied Ben, using a finger to check his teeth.

  “Here,” the motel manager said, holding out a towel. “You got a nasty cut on your jaw there. You’ll probably need stitches.”

  “Yeah,” said Ben. All his teeth appeared to be where he’d left them the night before.

  “I hear more police comin’,” said the manager.

  Ben heard the sirens, too. “Help me up,” he grunted, and the manager put an arm around him and lifted until he was perched precariously on the car’s fender. The researcher saw that many of the motel’s occupants were using their phones to take pictures of the devastation. He was appalled to see that a few of the adults had actually brought their children with them. Look at the dead policemen, kids! Isn’t that interesting?

  The first car to arrive didn’t belong to law enforcement. It was a black Mercedes with tinted windows and no plates. It rolled past the stalled police car, navigated around the corpse of the policeman and through the pond of blood before coming to a stop next to Ben and the motel manager. The driver’s window slid down and Lilian stared out.

  “Ben, are you okay?”

  “Do I look okay?” he asked, holding the blood-soaked towel against his face. “Do you realize that you drove though a crime scene?”

  “There was no way around it,” she responded defensively. She gave the manager a sideways glance and said to Ben, “Can you come here for a moment? I’d like to speak to you in private.”

  Grimacing, the man hobbled to the Mercedes and placed his forearms on the windowsill. As he did so, the passenger side door opened and Mr. Fetch stepped out. The servant walked briskly around the front of the car and stopped in front of Ben. “May I have your car keys, sir?”

  “My car keys? Why would I give you my car keys?” Ben ducked his head into the car and said to Lilian, “Who is Fiela and what, exactly, is wrong with her? Are we talking drugs or insanity? Are you two in some kind of cult?”

  “Fiela is friend. A troubled friend.”

  “Troubled? She just involved me in a police killing.”

  “That can be avoided.”

  “It’s already happened, Lilian.”

  “It can be undone.”

  “Undone?” the bloodied man said incredulously. “You’re both nuts.”

  Lilian reached out and stroked his cut cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re injured, Ben. You need medical assistance.”

  He began to object but was distracted by an exquisite scent radiating from the soft flesh caressing his face. It was a perfume; a strange perfume. He couldn’t remember smelling anything like it before. It was intoxicating.

  Lilian said in a subdued tone, “You’ve been hit on the head. You may have a concussion. You look dizzy.” She emphasized the word ‘dizzy.’ “You could lose consciousness and what good would you be to the police then? Or to me?”

  In fact, he did feel dizzy. A wave of nausea washed over him.

  “Come with me, Ben. Everything will be fine. We’ll get you a doctor and my attorneys will take care of any con
cerns that the police may have.”

  God, what kind of perfume is that?

  Ben realized the woman was right. He wasn’t well. The smartest thing to do was to go with her. He handed his keys to the waiting Mr. Fetch and moved resignedly around the front of the Mercedes toward the seat the younger man had vacated.

  “Hey, fella, you can’t leave,” objected the motel manager. “That’s not the way things are done.”

  “I know,” replied Ben.

  “You gotta give a statement!”

  Ben slid into the leather seat next to Lilian and closed the door, breathed in the cool new-car smell. Classical music was playing on the radio.

  “Poor baby,” she said. “You didn’t turn off your phone, did you?”

  “Still haven’t,” admitted Ben.

  “No matter. Fiela is gone and she’s the one they want.”

  “Why do the police want her?”

  Lilian put the car into gear and performed a tight turn in the parking lot, forcing several gawkers to make way. “Long story. It can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow I’ll probably be in jail,” Ben said, slumping against the door and reclining the power seat. “Or in court. The police are going to have a lot of questions for me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “A lot of people saw me with Fiela,” Ben said weakly. “Some took pictures.” He was fighting to remain conscious. “Maybe video,” he mumbled.

  “Sleep.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Mmmm…”

  “I’m taking you back to your apartment.”

  “Mmmm” he responded from a million miles away. As he descended into the void, he mumbled, “Why are we doing this?”

  Lilian answered, but Ben didn’t hear a word.

  Part 2 - September 22nd

  He heard her word and accepted her speech.

  The counsel of the woman

  Entered his heart.

  She stripped off a garment,

  Clothed him with one.

  Another garment

  She kept on herself.

  She took hold of his hand.

  Like a god she brought him

  To the fertile meadow.

  The Epic of Gilgamesh (1300 B.C.)